Each year, the Rennie Center collects a set of key indicators in the Data Dashboard to provide context on the status of education in the Commonwealth. This data is collected from the MA Department of Early Education and Care; MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; MA Department of Higher Education; U.S. Census Bureau; U.S. Department…

Fourteen percent of the nation's population lives in rural communities, and one in five K-12 students attends a rural school. This is a substantial portion of the population, but it's far too often overlooked by education analysts, advocates, and policymakers. Rural communities tend to face some persistent challenges, including higher rates of…

Background: For a majority of the world's children, despite substantial increases in primary school enrollment, academic learning is neither occurring at expected rates nor supplying the basic foundational skills necessary to succeed in the 21st century. The significant lag in academic achievement tells us that simply making formal education…

School funding has become an increasingly volatile issue in Florida and nationwide over the past year. In 2011, the state of Florida cut $1.4 billion from public education as part of an effort to balance the budget during an economic downturn without increasing tax revenues. In Duval County, that translated to a $91 million shortfall and several…

Focuses on the role that citizen groups--both grass roots and nationally affiliated--play in local communities, examines the history of these groups, describes their activities, presents research findings, and sketches library service trends in several communities. References are included. (FM)

This paper describes a survey, of 51 rural schools in Illinois, that was conducted to gather information on English and language arts teaching in rural areas. Following an introduction to the rationale and methodology of the survey, the paper discusses the results of the survey in the following areas: (1) the rural community, including community…

Drawing from existing data and a survey of each provincial or territorial child care office in Canada, this report provides a profile of child care services in each province and territory, and in the country as a whole. Each provincial profile includes information on: (1) relevant legislation; (2) the name and address of the provincial official…

The first National Drug Control Strategy set ambitious two and five-year performance based goals: (1) to lower the rate of drug use by 10 percent over 2 years among both youth and adults; and (2) to lower the rate by 25 percent over 5 years. The chapters in this updated version are keyed to the strategies three priorities: (1) Stopping Use Before…

This report on Compensatory Education (CE) provides a description of instructional services in basic skills and assesses educational development through the presentation of extensive data. Findings are based on data collected on 81,450 elementary school students enrolled in fifty representative schools during 1976-77 school year, and questionnaire…